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Imperial Star Destroyer

A decade after the end of the Clone Wars, the Imperial Navy began an extensive modernization effort to reduce costs and expand its already considerable presence in the Outer Rim. As the mainstay of the fleet, the Imperator Star Destroyer was the most expensive and obvious target for streamlining, particularly given its rather rushed production cycle during the Wars. Unfortunately, improving on this vessel proved to be a more difficult task than Kuat Fleet Yards had anticipated, and the project soon spilled vastly over budget. The Imperator was very much a product of necessity, with a 'make it work' philosophy in evidence throughout its subsystem design principles and almost no regard given to future refitting. Without the pressure of wartime deadlines, the Kuati engineers responsible for the upgrade program found countless flaws in the original schematics which had either been patched over, worked around, or simply ignored by destroyer crews for years. After billions of credits wasted in prototype testing, the refit project was eventually abandoned for a complete ground-up redesign.<br/><br/>Though many candidates and concept designs were considered to replace the Imperator, the fact that the Imperial Navy's entire structure was built around these vessels and their capabilities limited what the new ship could be and which manufacturers had a realistic chance of delivering it. In the end, Kuat's own redesign was selected and the Imperial-I and II programs were launched. The Imperial-I class (those ships previously designated as Imperator) would received upgrades to their holonet transmitters, deflector shields, and certain other systems, but were to be gradually phased out of production as dry-docks retooled for Imperial-II production. The Imperial-II class is superficially similar to its predecessor, but beyond its general shape and systems layout, it is a completely new vessel.<br/><br/>The II-class (or ImpStar Deuce, as spacers prefer to call it) features small but significant improvements over its predecessor in almost every regard. Speed and shield strength has been marginally improved, the hull has been reinforced using knowledge gleaned from years of experience with the Tector class, and the primary armament has been upgraded from antiquated ultra-heavy Clone-Wars era dual turbolaser batteries to far more efficient modern octuple turrets. Even the Tie Fighter launch systems have been streamlined for faster combat deployment. Most critically of all, these new Star Destroyers have been designed with likely future developments in mind, meaning the gap between the I and II classes will only continue to grow as newer and better technologies are developed for this, the Empire's premier warship.

I wanted to announce this in a video trailer, but as that got delayed a bit news has snuck out in the forums so I'm posting it again here. The Imperial Star Destroyer (ISD-II) has been completed and is in-game in all its glory and majesty. The model was completed by Brand-X and textured by Zookeeper, and their hard work has paid off on an absolutely incredible model. See the Screenshots gallary for a few more pictures.